Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. "We have a single system," he wrote, and "in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses."
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the American political system as being a single entity with two similar factions, emphasizing the manipulation of the working class.
Gore Vidal suggests that the American political landscape is dominated by two parties, the Republican and Democratic, that serve the same underlying system. Drawing on Henry Adams' insights, he argues that both parties ultimately exist to manage the proletariat, using distractions like 'bread and circuses' to keep the masses content while their real interests are commodified.
In practice
During a lecture on political systems, one could quote this to illustrate systemic issues in democracy.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
The American people abhor a vacuum.
When Bush says democracy, I often wonder what he's referring to.
With his mendacity and increasingly virulent attacks on immigrants, Muslims, women, the press, the judiciary, the intelligence services, the F.B.I. - any group or institution that he finds threatening or useful as a scapegoat - Mr. Trump is attempting the Orwellian trick of redefining American reality on his own terms.
In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.
That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust
But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter.
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